denon jazz sampler plus the audio toolbox iii

#Denon jazz sampler plus the audio toolbox iii professional

Fortunately, I was able to sell the unit quickly and get most of my money back. I could not return the unit to the dealer because his return policy only allowed for defective products. PS Audio and Bryston went ahead with the troubleshooting exercise anyway. However, by the time I received that notification, I had decided to put the DS DAC up for sale and I informed PS Audio of my decision. A BDP-1 would be sent to PS Audio and a DS DAC would be sent to Bryston. PS Audio and Bryston finally agreed to send each other their respective components to try to reproduce my issue. I went through a variety of troubleshooting exercises with PS Audio and Bryston tech support, but there was no resolution. PS Audio and Bryston responded immediately to my emails about the BDP-1/DS DAC DSD playback issue. DS DAC display when a DSD file was transmitted over the USB input.

There was also no problem playing PCM files from the BDP-1 through either a coaxial or AES/EBU connection.įigure 2. However, if I played the same file from my laptop computer running JRiver Media Center, the DS DAC would play the file with no problem. The DS DAC's display would say 'PCM' and give an erroneous sample rate whenever a DSD file was played from the BDP-1. I immediately had an issue playing DSD files from the BDP-1 digital player. The sound steadily improved and was listenable and pleasant after the first 24 hours. The first 24 hours was characterized by thin, bright, veiled sound with muddy bass. My DS DAC arrived with the latest firmware version, 1.2.1, installed. The DS-DAC sounded good, but, compared to the Cary. If you were Bill Gates and suddenly had Donald Trump's money, would you feel rich?įigure 1. If you suddenly had Donald Trump's money, would you feel rich?Ģ. My dissatisfaction with it was based on my comparison of it to the Cary CD 306's DAC section and can be illustrated with the following analogy:ġ. The retail value of my investment in PS Audio equipment spread over five audio and audio/video systems exceeds $50,000.Īlthough I ended up selling the DS DAC, I consider it to be a fine sounding DAC with great build quality, aesthetics, and features. I had high expectations for the DirectStream DAC ($5,995) based on the favorable reviews I had read and based on my excellent experiences with PS Audio power cords and power quality enhancement components. The Cary does not have a USB input and therefore cannot accept DSD files.

#Denon jazz sampler plus the audio toolbox iii professional

I currently play digital files with a Bryston BDP-1 connected to the DAC section of a Cary Audio CD 306 Professional Version SACD player ($7,995) with a BNC-RCA digital coaxial cable. I was interested in adding DSD file playback capability to my two channel system.